I can has tunnels?

I have tunnels. Took me most of the night and about 1.2 hours past my normal time to sleep, but I have relatively good-looking tunnels for my game. All nicely and procedurally generated using a good-quality random number generator. At this rate, I should have the first part (create the empty layout) done by Wednesday night. I still have to make it generate past the first one (relatively easy) and allow moving backwards (despite being not the point of the game, I'll still need it). And remove the overlap and I will be done with that part. :) I might even ignore the "no computer one day a week" for this, in my obsession, but I haven't decided that. If I behave, then it will be Thursdaynight.

Writing computer games is fun. There are so many little details, little systems that have to be solved to make it work. Its like writing a novel, but… different. Though, I get the same rush when I finish a difficult bit of code as I do finishing achapter.

Part two of Running Bomb will consist of making the tunnel do something. In this case, sending a bright red ball bouncing down through it at high speed (steerable by arrow keys). That will test both the physics system and the basic controls for thegame.

I also decided to have a badge system. Basically rewards for doing some accomplishment. And, since I pretend to be a scientific-person, most of them are based on science and SI elements. Since the game is based on there being one trillion and one people in the asteroid, the first badge is going to be σ (sigma). If you save 68.2689%, you get the σ badge. If you manage to save 95.4500%, you get the 2σ badge. All the way up to 6σ for saving 100.0000% of the population, including yourself. Obviously, only four decimal places with standard rounding. I got all of those from the Wikipedia.

Related to that will be the top-speed one. Mainly because it is possible to save yourself in the game (you have to travel 2 Mm in five minutes), I'm going to have a speed score. So, the first one will be dam/s or going faster than 10 m/s. And all of the numerical prefixes after that: hm/s, km/s, and Mm/s. I'm not going to go faster than Mm/s because I don't think the game should let you do that and Gm/s is faster than the speed oflight.

Other than that, I think I have only two others right now. Pacifist which you have at the start, but lose as soon as you fire your gun. And a negative badge, Killer, which you get if you kill someone in the game (which also lowers your chance at the σrewards).

I want to write games that allow you to finish without resorting to violence. This is just one of the little ways I'm planning on doing that. Badges add to your score, I haven't figured out the exact formula, but probably: (log(people saved) 10000 (1 + sum(all badge weights) / 10)).

I'm planning on having things that will slow down the clock, so you'll get more than five minutes depending onluck.

2008-05-20

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